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$HE CHURCH AND HIGHER EDUCATION, i! 

BY HON. WM. LAWRENCE, LL.D. 



METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE 

80 5 BROADWAY N Y 



TRACT DEPART MEN 




G/fv 

THE 



Relations of the Church 



HIGHEE EDUCATION. 



AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BY 

HON. WM. LAWRENCE, LL.D., 

of Bellefontaine, Ohio, 

Before the Faculty and Students of the Ohio 

Wesleyan University, and others, at 

Delaware, Ohio, June 24, 1879. 



"And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the 
ditch." — Matt, xv, 14. 

"Woe unto you, ye blind guides." — Matt, xxiii, 16. 



NEW YORK : 
PHILLIPS & HUNT \$ 

CINCINNATI: 

HITCHCOCK & WALDEN'. 

1879. 




9t 



4*v 



RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH 



HIGHER EDUCATION 



Ladies and Gentlemen: I am conscious 
of the peril I encounter in attempting to 
speak to an audience so learned as that be- 
fore me and around me, on a subject which 
you have considered so much. But I hope 
I may be able to present some thoughts 
worthy of consideration on "The Rela- 
tion of the Church to Higher Educa- 
tion." 

When it is said there is a "higher 
education " it is necessarily assumed that 
there is education in a different degree. 
And this is true. In the States of this 
Union, and in some of the nations of Europe, 
there are common schools. These in some 
localities bring the means of an ordinary 



4 Relations of the Church 

education within the reach of every child 
of school age, while in others this result is 
but partially attained. 

The instruction afforded in these schools 
furnishes what is generally called a " Com- 
mon School Education," embracing the or- 
dinary branches of learning; sometimes ex- 
tended so as to include much that is called 
higher education. 

Then there is in this and other civilized 
nations a " higher education " which is 
taught almost exclusively in institutions for 
secondary instruction, in colleges and uni- 
versities. These, of course, vary in the ex- 
tent of their educational facilities, but they 
generally profess to teach something, and 
some of them teach all that is known of 
language, of history, of mental and moral 
and social and physical science, and math- 
ematics. This learning of the institutions 
for secondary instruction, and of the col- 
leges and universities, is designated as 
" higher education" 

The inquiry which is now presented for 
consideration is this : What are, or rather 



to Higher Education. 5 

what should be, the relations of the 
Church to this higher education?" 

Before this inquiry can be answered, I 
may state as a fundamental principle, that 
education — the higher and the common — is 
essential to advanced civilization, to prog- 
ress and perfection in the Church, the 
State, and the affairs of life. One of the 
most gifted of the Irish orators once put 
and answered the interrogatory: "With- 
out education, what is man? A splendid 
slave, a reasoning savage, vacillating be- 
tween the dignity of an intelligence derived 
from God, and the degradation of passions 
participated in by brutes." 

The Almighty lias bestowed upon man 
certain faculties, and it is just as rational 
to conclude thnt these are given to be im- 
proved to the extent of their capacity, as it 
is to infer that material physical powers or 
objects are created for use. 

Reason, then, teaches the duty to edu- 
cate, and this duty is proclaimed all through 
the word of God. 

Jeremiah closes his fifth chapter witli a 



6 Relations of the Church 

"melancholy picture" of the people, when 
he says : t{ Hear now this, O foolish people, 
and without understanding; which have 
eyes, and see not; which have ears, and 
hear not." 

Again it is said : " For the heart of this 
people is waxed gross, and their ears are 
dull of hearing, and their eyes have they 
closed ; lest they should see with their eyes, 
and hear with their ears, and understand 
with their heart, and should be converted, 
and I should heal them." Acts xxviii, 27. 

Reason and revelation alike enjoin upon 
all men the duty to exercise, to cultivate, 
and improve for good purposes the faculties 
which God has given us ; and this requires 
education. 

The necessity for teachers is well under- 
stood. He who imparts instruction in a 
common school is a teacher. He who edu- 
cates in a college is a teacher. He who in- 
structs in the science of government is a 
teacher. He who instructs in the mechan- 
ical arts is a teacher, who, especially in the 
present advanced condition of mechanical 



to Higher Education. 7 

skill, must often call into exercise talent 
and learning of a higher order. He who 
ministers at the sacred desk, and undertakes 
to proclaim the doctrines of eternal life, the 
knowledge of God, and the duties of men, 
must be learned in the language by which 
instruction is imparted, in the profound 
truths displayed in the words and the works 
of the Creator, in the philosophy of the hu- 
man heart, in mental and social and moral 
science, and in the art of instruction. The 
teacher in our common schools, in our col- 
leges, in the science of government, in all 
the learned professions, will be vastly aided 
in his progress on the road to success 
by an intimate knowledge of that " higher 
education " which constitutes the learning 
of the learned. There is in the mechanic 
arts a common education and a higher edu- 
cation, and they who assume to be teachers 
should be masters of all the learning on the 
subject. These are all plain truths, taught 
alike by reason and experience. And again 
we may appeal to the infallible source of 
all wisdom for information on this subject. 



8 Relations of the Church 

Christ denounced the scribes and the Phar- 
isees because of their faithless and false 
teaching, when he said : — 

" Woe unto you, ye blind guides." Matt. 
xxiii, 16. And he gave as a warning to 
the ages the consequences of such teaching, 
when he said : — 

"And if the blind lead the blind, both 
shall fall into the ditch." Matt, xv, 14. 

Adam Clarke, in commenting on this pas- 
sage, says : " This was so self-evident a case 
that an after-parallel could not be found. 
If the minister be ignorant he cannot teach 
what he does not know, and the people 
cannot become wise unto salvation." Un- 
doubtedly it is true that men may be vastly 
useful as teachers, as ministers, in all the 
affairs of life, who are not college graduates. 
The teacher who only proposes to instruct 
in orthography may succeed without any 
great skill in mathematics. There are law- 
yers skillful in some branches of law who 
know little or nothing of others. There 
are inviting fields in which to teach from 
the sacred desk where harvests ma}' be 



to Higher Education. 9 

gathered without the aid of extensive 
knowledge in higher education. But all 
who teach must, to the extent of that in 
which they profess to instruct, be learned 
themselves, or they cannot make others 
learned. And there are times and places 
and purposes for which the highest attain- 
able education is required. This cannot be 
denied, unless we are prepared to assert 
that God has given a capacity to reach the 
highest learning, but has given it without a 
purpose, and that in the providence of God 
that which is knowable by men should re- 
main unknown, and that useful knowledge 
should not be used. God is omniscient. 
His is the supreme knowledge. The nearer 
we can approach to the attainment of his 
attributes the nearer we shall be like him. 
If it be said the apostles were not all edu- 
cated men, I answer, that in the work to 
which they were called they did receive the 
" highest education." They were taught 
directly by the great Teacher. His per- 
sonal mission has been transferred to the 
Church which he established, and on it de* 



10 Relations of the Church 

volves the duty of maintaining the higher 
education. I will assume, then, as proved, 
that the higher and the common education 
are essential, and that these require teach- 
ers of various degrees of learning. In or- 
der, now, to ascertain what the relations of 
the Church should be to higher education 
it may be well to see what they have been. 
Two theories have prevailed in the Church 
and in the State as to the objects of higher 
education, and the necessity and proper 
extent of the more common education. 
Through ages the prevailing idea in the 
Church was that there should be an educated 
class, learned in all that could be known of 
higher education ; that this class should 
monopolize the learning of the world ; that 
the Bible itself should be locked up in the 
dead languages, accessible to and read only 
by the privileged few; that to all but 
them it should be a sealed book ; that they 
should ex cathedra interpret and proclaim 
its teachings, and that the mass of mankind 
should, without thought or inquiry, accept 
all thus taught as true. .- These were, ages 



to Higher Education. 11 

of priestcraft, of corruption in high places, 
of ignorance and degradation among the 
masses. A writer who has thoroughly- 
studied the subject says : — 

"The fourteenth century was in morals 
the darkest of the Dark Ages. . . . Indul- 
gences for the commission of any crime ex- 
cept heresy could be purchased, . . . and over 
the extensive realms which acknowledged 
the power of the Papal See . . . vice and 
corruption reigned. . . . The peasantry of 
Europe were rarely or never taught to read. 
It was reserved, however, for Luther and 
Melanchthon to inaugurate a new era in 
education," and, it may also be said, a new 
era in religion and the policy of the world. 
In 1450 printing w r as invented. The col- 
leges and universities controlled by the 
Church had preserved in manuscript and in 
memory the sacred treasures of higher edu- 
cation, and men trained in these became 
the forerunners of the Reformation and the 
Reformers themselves. " The Universities 
of Prague and Wittenberg, of Basle and 
Lausanne, of Oxford and Cambridge, of 



12 Relations of the Chuech 

Strasbnrg and St, Andrew's, were the birth- 
places of the Reformation." Wickliffe and 
Huss, Reuchlin and Erasmus, Luther and 
Melanchthon, Bucer and Calvin, Tyndale and 
Bilney, Latimer and Knox, were men trained 
in the universities. Some of them prepared 
the way in the wilderness, and others per- 
fected the conquest of the Reformation. A 
new era dawned upon the world. The Re- 
formers demanded an open Bible for all, 
freedom of thought for all, and, as necessary 
to these, education for all. In 1524 Luther 
had published "An Address to the Council- 
men of all the Towns of Germany, calling 
upon them to establish and sustain schools." 
Out of this beginning has grown the Com- 
mon-school Systems, and general intelligence 
among the people of Protestant nations. 

And as a result we have general intelli- 
gence, freedom of thought, an open Bible, 
the wonders of steam and electricity, of 
labor-saving machinery, and the press, send- 
ing abroad its leaves for the instruction and 
healing of the nations. 

So in the States of the world there have 



to Higher Education. 13 

been, and are, two theories of Government. 
One is, that a privileged class shall rule. 
This was the natural offspring of that theory 
of the Church which gave a monopoly of 
higher education to the few and no educa- 
tion to the masses. But as the old Church 
theory disappeared in some countries before 
the ideas of the Reformation, so the old 
theory of government has disappeared or 
is giving way to the ideas of our own, the 
Great Republic, that a common school edu- 
cation should be universal; that higher ed- 
ucation should be within the reach of all 
who desire it ; that all political power is in- 
herent in the people, with a right to intrust 
its exercise to officers adjudged by popular 
suffrage to have the requisite qualifications. 
A brief review may be said to summarize 
on these subjects the history of the Chris- 
tian era— nearly nineteen centuries— and 
from this we may see the relation which 
the Church has sustained to higher educa- 
tion : — 

1. For fifteen centuries the Church was 
the exclusive custodian of the higher edu- 



1-1 Relations of the Church 

cation, and substantially of all the educa- 
tion of the civilized world. The universities, 
the teachers, and the learning were hers. 

2. But for the Church — but for a religion 
— higher education, and all education, would 
have perished, and barbarism and savage 
life would have cursed the lands now 
blessed with Christian temples, with Chris- 
tian toleration, with Christian civilization, 
and all that these imply. Higher education 
has never in any nation been adequately 
maintained apart from the institutions of 
religion. 

3. The prevailing ideas of the Church 
have found corresponding and analogous 
ideas in the affairs of State, the forms of 
government, the rights of the people, and in 
their social condition as well. When the 
Church was for free thought and free dis- 
cussion the State in its affairs accorded the 
same. When the Church demanded an 
open Bible, ample toleration, and that the 
people should be educated to understand, 
the State responds and concedes the de- 
mand. 



to Higher Education. 15 

. 4. The men who have controlled the 
higher education of the world have controlled 
the Church, the State, and all thaf pertained 
to the affairs of mankind. 

This higher education has been used in 
Church and State to aid the purposes of 
despots; it has been employed to oppress 
the many and keep power in the hands of 
the few. But it has had within itself in the 
hands of reformers the power and the pur- 
pose to correct abuses, to demand and se- 
cure education for all and equal rights for 
all. 

With universal common education higher 
education has been controlled for universal 
good. With this view of the relations 
which the Church has sustained to higher 
education, we may inquire what they now 
are, and what they should be ? 

What these relations are, is a question of 
fact; what they should be, is a question of 
duty. 

In the Report of the Bureau of Education 
for 1877 we tind the following statistical 
summary : — 



16 Relations op the Church 

Statistical Summary of Instructors and Stu- 
dents in Universities and Colleges of the 
United States by Religious Denomination: — 

Number Number Number 
Denomination. of Institu- of Instruct- of Stu- 

tions. ors. dents. 

Unsectarian 18 1,021 16,302 

Roman Catholic 49 733 7,851 

Methodist Episcopal 44 425 7,930 

Baptist 40 299 5,085 

Presbyterian « 35 335 5,088 

Congregational 20 239 3,878 

Lutheran 16 127 2,073 

Christian 14 112 2,043 

Protestant Episcopal 11 127 911 

Not reporting 10 36 514 

Reformed , 7 68 764 

United Brethren 7 46 1,040 

Friends 6 50 780 

Methodist 6 54 1,036 

Universalist 5 62 394 

Jewish 1 4 24 

Seventh Day Advent 1 15 281 

New Church 1 6 41 

Total *351 3,759 56,035 

Of the universities and colleges it will be 
seen that 78 are nominally not under the pat- 
ronage or control of any religious denoin- 

* The list shows 27 additional institutions of this class from 
which we have no recent information, making a grand total 
of 378. 



to Higher Education.. 17 

iiiation, while 273 are under denominational 
control, and of 27 the ecclesiastical relation 
is not known. Of the whole number the 
history of which is ascertained, -fife have 
been founded through the agency of differ- 
ent religious denominations, and of the re- 
maining -ffe it is quite certain that a large 
proportion have been founded and are sus- 
tained by religious influences. 

One of the most eminent statisticians, 
Edward D. Mansfield, says : " Nine tenths 
of all the colleges and universities are un- 
der Christian influence, and more than two 
thirds of them under evangelical influence, 
and it is settled that religion is and must 
be a part of higher education." 

Practically it may be said that the uni- 
versities and colleges have been founded 
mainly through the agency of the Churches, 
or from religious motives, and that they con- 
tinue to be sustained and controlled by these 
influences. 

The theological seminaries, as shown by 

the Report of the Bureau of Education for 

1877, were as follows: — 
2 



18 Relations of the Church 

Statistical Summary of Theological Seminaries, 

Number Number Number 

Denomination. of Semi- of Pro- of Stu- 

naries. fessors. dents. 

Roman Catholic 18 96 575 

Protestant Episcopal 16 65 263 

Presbyterian 16 82 674 

Baptist 16 62 772 

Lutheran 13 38 252 

Congregational 9 64 347 

Methodist Episcopal 7 46 383 

Christian 3 4 31 

Reformed 3 8 62 

United Presbyterian 3 11 65 

Cumberland Presbyterian 2 11 61 

Pree Will Baptist 2 10 43 

Methodist Episcopal (South)... 2 8 68 

Unsectarian 2 17 120 

Reformed (Dutch) 2 5 40 

Universalist 2 9 48 

African Methodist Episcopal. . . 16 8 

Mennonite 1 4 50 

Methodist 1 

Moravian 1 3 19 

New Jerusalem 1 1 

Union Evangelical 1 4 32 

Unitarian 1 6 19 

United Brethren 1 2 33 

Total 124 562 3,965 

It may be proper to say, by way of ex- 
planation, that the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has a system of theological instruc- 



to Higher Education. 19 

tion, under the care of the Annual Confer- 
ences, which to some extent supplies the 
place of theological seminaries ; some if not 
most of the Churches have additional modes 
of instruction. 

In 1877 there were in the United States 
1,226 institutions for secondary instruction, 
having 5,963 instructors and 98,371 students. 
Of these institutions 516 were nominally 
not under the patronage of any religious 
denominations, while over 700 have been 
founded and are sustained by denomina- 
tional influences. Of these 101 were Ro- 
man Catholic, 34 Methodist Episcopal, 60 
Baptist, 76 Presbyterian, 44 Congregational, 
17 Lutheran, 78 Protestant Episcopal, 35 
Friends, and others of different denomina- 
tions — the whole number including institu- 
tions for both sexes. 

The Report of the Bureau of Education 
will show the number of instructors and 
students for each denomination. 

Without the "higher education" of the 
universities and colleges, common schools 
and institutions for secondaiv instruction 



20 Relations of the Church 

could not permanently flourish, and without 
all these " a Government of the people by 
the people and for the people" could not 
endure. 

The Church as a whole, then, is the Atlas 
which to-day bears the Republic on its 
shoulders. True, it has not discovered the 
" mistakes of Moses," but, rather, following 
in his footsteps, it has led, or is leading, the 
nations from worse than Egyptian bondage 
to the promised land of liberty, and has 
brought and is bringing " life and immor- 
tality to light." Before it goes " the cloud 
by day and the pillar of fire by night ;" op- 
position, like the Red Sea, opens to give it 
free course, and then closes to swallow up 
its enemies. In its onward march it bears 
an open Bible, and in its mission of mercy 
it proclaims the new commandment, " that 
ye love one another." It is to-day a pillar 
of fire in the desert of life, girt and beaming 
with the intelligence of heaven and the illu- 
minations of eternity, while opposition to it 
is but a foam-born bubble that bursts upon 
the wave. 



to Higher Education. 21 

And now tohat are the duties of the 
Church in reference to higher education? 

After what has already been said I will 
assume that the higher education and col- 
leges or universities for its dissemination are 
a necessity. 

How can they be, and how should they 
be, established and sustained? 

They may be established and endowed, 
(1) by the State, (2) by private benevolence 
or enterprise, or (3) by the Church. These 
are the three sources to which they may 
look for support. 

If all these sources can be advantageously 
utilized, let it be so. If any one source 
can be more certainly relied upon, and will 
be more efficient and useful, then to that we 
must of necessity turn, and give it our sanc- 
tion. 

In a new country, where the Church, or 
individual effort, or both, are inadequate to 
the public wants, the State may properly 
establish or aid in the establishment of 
universities and colleges. But where this 
necessity does not exist, it may well be 



22 Relations of the Church 

doubted whether such institutions under 
political control can be made permanently 
and eminently successful. Political parties 
change— sometimes from good to bad — and 
the power to control will change. In De- 
cember, 1876, I stood before the walls of 
the University of South Carolina. Some of 
its buildings were crumbling with decay — 
it was by no means prosperous — and a 
change in the political control of the State 
soon after drove out the professors and 
students who then occupied some of its apart- 
ments. 

The history of State universities and 
colleges for general higher education can- 
not be said to furnish the evidence of great 
success. Twenty-five years ago Professor 
Tyler, of Amherst College, said that " State 
policy, State patronage, exclusive of relig- 
ious influence, cannot show a single flour- 
ishing college from the Atlantic and the 
Great Lakes to the Pacific and the Gulf of 
Mexico." What was true then is true now, 
almost without exception. Until political 
parties shall improve, they cannot be relied 



to Higher Education. 23 

upon for the creation and proper care and 
management of universities and colleges. 

As a general rule it is safe to say, in the 
affairs of Government, that whatever can be 
safely and sufficiently done by private en- 
terprise should be left to its agency. The 
Government may properly do what individ- 
ual effort cannot or will not sufficiently do. 

John Stuart Mill has said : — 

" The objections to government inter- 
ference, when it is not such as to involve 
infringement of liberty, may be of three 
kinds. 

" The first is, when the thing to be done 
is likely to be better done by individuals than 
by the Government. Speaking generally, 
there is no one so fit to conduct any busi- 
ness, or to determine how or by whom it 
shall be conducted, as those who are per- 
sonally interested in it. This principle con- 
demns the interferences, once so common, 
of the Legislature, or the officers of govern- 
ment, with the ordinary processes of in- 
dustry. 

" The second objection : In many cases, 



24 Relations of the Church 

though individuals may not do the particu- 
lar thing so well, on the average, as the 
officers of Government, it is, nevertheless, 
desirable that it should be done by them 
rather than by the Government as a means 
to their own mental education — a mode of 
strengthening their active faculties, exer- 
cising their judgment, and giving them 
a familiar knowledge of the subject with 
which they are thus left to deal. 

" The third and most cogent reason for 
restricting the interference of Government 
is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to 
its power. Every function superadded to 
those already exercised by the Government 
causes its influence over hopes and fears to 
be more widely diffused, and converts, more 
and more, the active and ambitious part of 
the public into hangers-on of the Govern- 
ment, or of some party which aims at be- 
coming the Government. If the roads, the 
railways, the banks, the insurance offices, 
the great joint stock companies, the univer- 
sities, and the public charities, were all of 
them branches of the Government; if, in ad- 



to Higher Education. 25 

dition, the municipal corporations and local 
boards, with all that now devolves on them, 
became the departments of the central ad- 
ministration; if the employes of all these 
different enterprises were appointed and 
paid by the Government, and looked to the 
Government for every rise in life ; not all 
the freedom of the press and popular consti- 
tution of the Legislature would make this or 
any other country free otherwise than in 
name." 

These are the weighty words of a great 
political economist and statesman. They 
prove abundantly that colleges and univer- 
sities should not be controlled by political 
influences. 

Private enterprise may establish a college 
with a view to pecuniary gain, just as it 
may erect a factory or run a line of steam- 
ers. But a college erected with this view 
alone would have no concern for the morals 
of its students or the profundity of their 
learning beyond the success of its own 
finances. Such a college could not hope 
for success. A college cannot command 



26 Relations of the Chuech 

the respect of parents unless it is governed 
by conscience, and conducted by a sense of 
duty to care for the mental and moral ad- 
vancement of its students. 

Private enterprise has never yet supplied 
any material fraction of the public wants. 
Private benevolence has never yet founded 
and sustained colleges to any considerable 
extent, independent of Church control and 
patronage, and independent of religious 
motive. 

The efforts in this direction have not 
been eminently successful. 

Professor Tyler said twenty-five years 
ago that " Infidelity has yet to make its 
first successful enterprise of this sort." And 
this is true now. It has been so busily 
engaged in discovering errors in the Bi- 
ble, that it has had no time for this work. 
But skepticism has a right to erect its col- 
leges, and endow and support them. We 
believe in toleration. Its failure to do so 
is among the evidences that God in his 
providence confounds the purposes of those 
who would dethrone his power on earth. 



to Higher Education. 27 

." The fool hath said in his heart there is no 
God." And if colleges be erected for a high- 
er education founded on the idea that there 
is no God, it will be all the more necessary 
that those who believe in "life and immor- 
tality " shall have control of a higher edu- 
cation which — 

,; ' Lures to brighter worlds, and leads the way." 

It is the duty of the Church to found 
colleges^ and of Church members and all 
men to aid in their endowment. 

The American citizen, whom God has 
blessed " in basket and in store," is under a 
moral and religious duty to do all the good 
lie can in life, and then to leave behind him 
some memorial that he has not lived in vain 
— some "footprints on the sands of time." 
These are duties enjoined in the command 
to " love thy neighbor as thyself ; " in the 
command "that ye love one another;" in 
the lesson taught when Cain was " cursed 
from the earth" and became a "fugitive 
and a vagabond" because he denied the 
duty to be his " brother's keeper." He 



28 Relations op the Church 

who aids in the endowment of a college 
leaves behind him an ever speaking, acting 
agency for good among men, and thereby 
erects a monument to endure forever. 

Over every benefaction thus made the 
donor necessarily inscribes in words and 
works that live : Exegi monumentum cere 
perennius. His work, like " the quality of 
mercy," is " twice blessed ; it blesseth him 
that gives and him that takes." 

There is great need for aid to colleges. 
With our population of 45,000,000 in the 
United States there is now only one college 
to 124,000 people. The number of college 
students is not great, as compared with 
population, as Mansfield has shown by sta- 
tistics as follows : — 



States. 


Colleges. 


Students. 


Proportion. 


Six New England . 


1*7 


3,341 


1 in 105 persons. 


New York 


26 


2,764 


1 in 176 " 


Pennsylvania 


27 


2,359 


1 in 150 " 


Ohio 


36 


2,139 


1 in 124 " 


Indiana 


17 


1,413 


1 in 120 " 


Iowa 


17 


829 


1 in 144 " 


Michigan 


1 


817 


1 in 145 " 


Illinois 


26 


1,701 


1 in 140 " 



to Higher Education. 29 

It is better to increase the capacity and 
usefulness of existing institutions than to 
add to their number. While the college 
rolls show probably 60,000 as the annual 
attendance of students, the actual attendance 
at any one time is only about 32,000, of 
whom about 8,000 graduate annually. When 
we consider the vast and increasing demand 
in literary and business pursuits, it is certain 
the supply of thoroughly educated men and 
women is not at all sufficient. Let me sum- 
marize some of the reasons for maintaining 
higher education under Church control : — 

1. The Church has been the chief reposi- 
tory of learning through the ages. 

It has been the principal founder of the 
institutions of higher education, and with- 
out its agency this could have existed only 
to a very limited extent. What has been 
will continue to be. The Church must es- 
tablish colleges, or there will not be a suffi- 
cient number of them. There is need of 
effort even now in this direction, as I have 
already shown. 

The aggregate wealth in the United 



30 Relations of the Chukch 

States is probably $40,000,000,000, yet the 
value of university and college grounds 
and buildings is only $36,656,000 ; of pro- 
ductive funds $24,000,000; and the univer- 
sity and college revenues amount annual- 
ly to about $4,000,000, including a little 
over $2,000,000 in tuition fees and State ap- 
propriations. The benefactions for colleges 
have been but a meager fraction of the ag- 
gregate wealth, but it is encouraging to 
know that they are increasing. 

(Table xxv, Rep. Bureau Education, 
etc., 1874.) 

2. The Church is a proper power to founds 
patronize, and control universities and col- 
leges, because it is enduring. 

It is a permanent, safe, controlling power, 
liable to less change than any other source 
to which we can look. 

And it is gratifying to know as a ques- 
tion of Chancery Law, that gifts for educa- 
tional purposes cannot be perverted to de- 
feat the design of the donors: that courts will 
see that charitable purposes are carried out, 
and that when unforeseen changes occur 



to Higher Education. 31 

which may embarrass or render impractica- 
ble the literal execution of a charitable 
trust, the courts will not permit it to fail, 
but will protect and enforce its execution 
to carry out the design of the donor as 
nearly as may be practicable. (17 Ohio 
St. R., 365.) 

3. The Churches should found, endoio, 
and support universities and colleges to 
maintain the ascendency in giving to ed- 
ucated men the impress of that moral and 
religious sentiment which pervades the civil- 
ization of our age. 

The thought of the world should be coined 
in the right mint, and go forth pure gold, 
stamped, " In God We Trust." 

The Constitution of Ohio declares that 
" religion, morality, and knowledge, are 
essential to good government." The Prot- 
estant colleges of the United States are not 
devoted to instruction in any narrow secta- 
rianism, but they are devoted to education 
based on religion in its broadest sense. 

From the universities and colleges come 
to a large extent the teachers in our com- 



32 Relations of the Church 

mon schools, the men whose ministrations 
in the sacred desk make the Sabbath vocal 
with thanksgiving to God, the statesmen 
who control the destinies of empires and of 
States, the jurists who even more than legis- 
lators make law, and make the common law 
an admirable system of morals, vital with the 
forces of Christian precepts. From the 
same source to a large extent comes the all- 
pervading and ever-present power that con- 
trols the press and wields the "pen, more 
mighty than the sword." All these and 
more — all the moral and material forces of 
society, and its business agencies and inter- 
ests are largely controlled by men from the 
universities and colleges, or by influences 
there originated. There is an increasing 
demand for educated men in every depart- 
ment of business. It is a great mistake to 
suppose that the so-called learned profes- 
sions alone require higher education, or that 
these should be its principal recipients. 

Within a generation a revolution has been 
wrought in the modes of manufactures, com- 
merce, and agriculture. In manufactures 



to Higher Education. 33 

great corporations or establishments have 
supplanted individual producers and smaller 
associations. The carrying trade has by evo- 
lution passed from rude methods to vast rail- 
road lines, and to-day five railroad presidents 
exert more power than any one of the early 
Presidents of the Republic. One great cor- 
poration — the Western Union — owns and 
controls ninety per cent, of all the tele- 
graph lines of the country. Its president 
and cabinet have become a mighty power 
in this and with other nations. All these 
great agencies of civilization require men 
of great intellect, of profound learning, able 
to grasp and deal with the operations of 
commerce and the statesmanship of empires. 
For them there are duties and honors which 
more than rival in magnitude the opera- 
tions of Governments. They are to have 
a place in history, which henceforth will 
record more the triumphs of peace than of 
arms. 

A distinguished personage once said, "If 
I can write the songs of a nation I care not 
who makes its laws." His idea was, that 



34 Relations of the Church 

the power which controls the popular senti- 
ment will make its laws and govern all the 
movements of society. 

So far as there can be any one human 
agency or institution that exerts a pre-emi- 
nent influence and control it is the American 
college. This is the power that writes our 
songs. 

It has been well and truly said: "Re- 
move the colleges, and you take down 
the whole fabric of our social, political, 
and religious history. Extinguish [de- 
stroy] the colleges, and you put out the 
eyes both of the Church and the State. 
Take away the colleges, and you leave edu- 
cation, politics, and religion without com- 
petent guides — the school, the Church, and 
the State all without a suitable head." 

Mansfield declares that college graduates 
" furnish four fifths of all the ministers, law- 
yers, editors, men of science, and statesmen 
in the country. In one word, they furnish 
the mind of the nation — the orators, writers, 
savants, poets, and legislators of the land." 
His estimate may be overdrawn, but all 



to Higher Education. 35 

must ndrait the great utility of higher edu- 
cation. 

4. If it were possible that imiversities and 
colleges would be supplied without the aid of 
religious denominations, it is not desirable 
that the Churches should surrender the con- 
trol of all the agencies having such vast 
power for good. 

The Church cannot afford to surrender 
its power as a controlling element in science 
and in the education of those who are to 
direct the scientific mind of the world. By 
the test of science the Church and the Bible 
itself will be tried. True science is of God, 
and it cannot err. Whatever is in harmony 
with it will live; whatever is in conflict 
with it will perish. The Bible, in its his- 
tory of creation, has been tried by the eter- 
nal truths of geological science, and the 
rocks have testified that there are no " mis- 
takes of Moses " there. The Bridgewater 
Treatise demonstrates how Moses and geol- 
ogy clasp hands in cordial greeting over the 
chasm of the ages. 

Mental and moral and spiritual and nat- 



36 Relations of the Church 

ural philosophy are demonstrating that life 
and spirit force, from the lowest protoplastic 
form to the highest known this side of the 
Almighty, are emanations from the power 
of God, the all-creative source of life. 
Chemical science can, indeed, combine ma- 
terial elements to resemble the outward form 
of protoplasm, but still it is not protoplasm. 
It is the play of Hamlet with Hamlet omit- 
ted. Science has tried its hand in combin- 
ing the elements that make animal organ- 
isms, but life has never yet been evolved, 
and Tyndall acknowledges that the effort at 
spontaneous animal organization is a failure, 
and that there is no evidence of life-existence 
except as the product of prior life-existence, 
which is the same as to admit that God alone 
can give life, and he alone made man. 

Darwin- has profoundly studied the sci- 
ence of zoology, in its living and its extinct 
forms, as they are upon the earth, and as 
they are found in ocean beds or mountain 
strata or alluvial deposits, to find if lower 
forms of life have not by evolution grown 
into man, and thus to prove that M<-ses was 



to Higher Education. 37 

in error in affirming that " God created 
man." But the explanations of geology 
persistently refuse to supply the links be- 
tween the monkey and man, and Moses re- 
mains master of the situation. 

The theory that " death ends all" assumes 
that animal organization is the cause of 
life; while reason and science alike demon- 
strate that life is the cause of organization. 
The cause must precede the effect, and life 
— the vital essence, the spiritual existence — 
must precede the material organism ; and if 
it may precede, it may survive it and exist 
outside of it. God breathed into man the 
material organism — the breath of life — the 
spiritual essence — and he became a living 
soul. Gen. ii, 1. Here is the historical gen- 
esis, and the first great lesson in spiritual 
science. If the grand climax of life on 
earth in man came even up through evolu- 
tion, still it is the progressive agency of 
God, and leaves the doctrine of immortality 
intact ; for Tyndall and Huxley, Bain and 
Drysdale and Spencer, admit that chemical 
forces, or other innate qualities of inorganic 



38 Relations of the Church 

or organic matter, cannot explain or account 
for protoplastic or bioplastic force, much less 
for the higher developments of intellectual 
or spiritual life. Huxley affirms in effect 
that life is as much a quality of matter as 
" aquacity" is a quality of the protoxide of 
hydrogen — water; but this is a mere as- 
sumption, unsupported even by the hazardous 
mode of drawing conclusions from analogy, 
much less by more satisfactory methods of 
reasoning. It is a chemical fact that oxy- 
gen and hydrogen combined in proper pro- 
portions produce water, with the so-called 
quality of " aquacity ; " but it is not true 
that any combination of mere matter ever 
did or can produce a vital force or life, 
" Aquacity " is a quality of certain material 
elements combined in proper proportions ; 
life is not a quality, but a superadded es- 
sence. " Aquacity" is the inevitable attri- 
bute of the designed combination, and en- 
dures so long as the combination endures. 
But life is not a quality of animal organism, 
for the organism may survive the absence 
of the life essence, and still maintain all its 



to Higher Education. 39 

chemical elements and combinations. The 
lomc of facts affirms that the life essence is as 
independent of the matter it vitalizes as the 
electric fluid is of the rugged oak which it 
rends, or of the telegraph wire which it in- 
spires to speak the English tongue. Matter 
exists ; it combines with spirit-essence and 
still exists; the combination is dissolved, and 
it continues to exist even in its organic but 
not living forms. It is independent of spirit- 
essence, and, so far as we can learn from 
reason and fact, it will last forever. Why, 
then, shall not life, the vital principle — 
the mind, the soul — be equally enduring? 
Combe, in his work on the constitution of 
man, insists that the Bible addresses man as 
phrenology sketches him, and hence anthro- 
pology and revelation are in accord. 

These are mere illustrations of some of 
the subjects and some of the forms in which 
the Church is interested in the science 
taught by higher education, but they dem- 
onstrate the necessity of preserving the 
control in the hands of those who can " Look 
through nature up to nature's God." 



40 Relations of the Church 

If the Churches shall surrender all interest 
in colleges, there will still a limited number 
remain, and the professorships will be filled 
with scientists propagating the worst forms 
of the worst theories of Huxley, of Darwin, 
or other heresies still more dangerous. If 
the Churches shall surrender their hold on 
science, the philosophy of materialism, which 
proclaims that "death ends all," will sup- 
plant the philosophy which brings "life and 
immortality to light." 

The Methodist Episcopal Church should 
do its part — all the Churches should do their 
respective parts — in the grand work of 
higher education. 

Professor Tyler says : — 

"Methodism, which may well be called 
a second reformation, . . . took its rise, re- 
ceived its name, and began its conquests, in 
the University of Oxford. Wesley was for 
ten years a fellow of Lincoln College, and 
resisted all the importunities of his friends 
to leave his fellowship for a curacy." 

5. Universities and colleges must be main- 
tained by Protestant Churches to secure uni- 



to Higher Education. 41 

versa! common school education, religious 
toleration, and republican government, and 
to maintain the Church itself. 

Of the 378 colleges in the United States 
to-day 49 are under the patronage of the 
Roman Catholic Church. This religious 
denomination has more colleges and large- 
ly more instructors than any other. The 
Baptists have 40 colleges; the Method- 
ist Episcopal Church, 44 ; the Presbyte- 
rian, 35, or perhaps more. The Protestant 
Churches combined have, as shown by the 
Bureau of Education, 224 colleges, but in 
fact the number is greater. A generous, 
liberal rivalry among these may be useful. 
They are united in the great purposes 
which I have named. They are united in 
the sentiment of liberal toleration. But 
if they relax their efforts in behalf of 
higher education there will be dangers the 
extent of which may not now be readily 
foretold. 

There are many of those united with the 
Roman Catholic Church who have not fully 
learned, or if so, do not sanction all of its 



42 Relations of the Church 

teachings. They should not be held respon- 
sible for that which they do not approve. 
But the Roman Catholic Church in its au- 
thoritative writings maintains that it has 
" the power of using force," as against or 
for a government, and that it has " temporal 
power " as well as spiritual. Here may be 
danger to the Government. 

This Church disapproves any "system of 
instructing youth which is separated from 
Catholic faith and the power of the Church." 
This is hostile to our common school sys- 
tem, which belongs to all the people, and 
must necessarily be unsectarian or it can- 
not endure; and this renders it all the more 
necessary that colleges should be under re- 
ligious influences. 

This Church maintains that it is " expe- 
dient that the Catholic religion should be 
recognized as the only religion of the State." 
This requires a union of Church and State, 
from which must follow intolerance and 
dangers the extent of which cannot be 
measured. No Church is more fully aware 
of the power of higher education. 



to Higher Education. 43 

It has been said that " those world-re- 
nowned educators and conquerors, the Jesu- 
its, recovered the larger part of Europe to the 
papacy when it seemed lost forever. They 
seized upon the higher dep irtments of edu- 
cation, both private and public, and from 
these fountains, whether in universities or 
courts, or the families of the great, their in- 
fluence flowed naturally and necessarily 
down through the inferior schools and the 
lower classes, till at length it pervaded all 
the channels of thought and feeling and 
action. At some period of their history the 
Jesuits have had under their control nearly 
600 colleges, scattered from China to the 
British Isles, through almost every nation 
on the globe." 

Again, it is said that " Austria herself 
was at one time essentially Protestant. Not 
one in 30 of the population adhered to pa- 
pacy, and for nearly a generation scarcely a 
man was found to enter the Romish priest- 
hood. But the Jesuits obtained a controll- 
ing influence in the universities, and in a 
single generation Austria was lost to the 



44 Relations oe the Church 

Reformation and regained to the papal 
hierarchy." 

Poland shared substantially the same his- 
tory. 

Here, then, are historical evidences of the 
power of higher education, and of the ne- 
cessity of maintaining a large and liberal 
share of it in Protestant hands. 

The Protestant Churches deny the power 
assumed by Rome to levy war, to build up 
or tear down Governments. Their mission 
is for peace on earth and good-will among 
men. Under their teachings republican 
government may endure for countless ages; 
without them the fate of the dead and 
buried republics will be ours. 

The Protestant Churches are the friends 
of common schools, open for every youth 
in the land, imbued with the spirit of religion, 
but with no sectarian control. This gives 
to the children of the poor and the rich an 
equal chance in the race of life, and admits 
of no aristocracy but that of intellectual 
and moral merit. 

Our Government sanctions toleration, and 



to Higher Education. 45 

denies that a Church can be properly es- 
tablished by the State. These principles 
are safe in Protestant hands. Churches are 
ordained of God alone. 

6. Colleges founded from religious mo- 
tives give the greatest promise of permanent 
success. 

No work is so well done as that which is 
prompted by conscience and a sense of re- 
ligious duty. No zeal is so earnest, watchful, 
efficient, and powerful, as that which springs 
from religious motive. This is attested 
by the history of the world. No courage 
can surpass that inspired by religion, whose 
heroes and martyrs have given the highest 
evidence that men will live, and, if need be, 
die for the eternal truths of God. Colleges 
founded by political parties, or by private 
enterprise for mere gain, cannot feel or 
have the holy inspiration of those whose 
builders and controlling influences are 
prompted and led forward by love to God 
and love to man. 

Two centuries and a half are numbered 
with the buried past since the " Mayflower " 



46 Relations of the Church. 

landed at Plymouth rock. On the rugged 
shores of New England the Pilgrim Fa- 
thers laid the foundations of a new empire. 
There they reared the church edifice, aud 
close by its side the school-house. Within 
eighteen years after they had made their 
homes in the wilderness they established 
Harvard College for higher education. All 
honor to the Pilgrim Fathers ! 

" 'Tis heaven assigns their noble work, man's spirit to 

unbind ; 
They come not for themselves alone, they come for all 

mankind. 
And in the Empire of the West this glorious boon they 

bring; 
A Church [freed from State power,] a State without a 

king." 

" The lines have fallen to us in pleasant 
places." The heritage which the fathers 
left us is ours — ours to enjoy — ours to pre- 
serve — ours to transmit, unimpaired and im- 
proved, to posterity. 

Let us, then, add to the power and influ- 
ence of institutions of higher education in 
the interest of that Christian civilization 
which, as has been forcibly said, "has 



to Higher Education. 47 

marched stendily on under the banner of 
faith, until now it governs the earth. The 
lands of the Veda are governed by a Chris- 
tian power; the realms of Buddha are 
crumbling away ; dark Mohammedanism 
sullenly retreats, until the towers of an- 
cient Byzantium tremble, and the crescent 
fades before the cross. At this moment the 
missionaries are carrying the cross and the 
steamer side by side on the lakes of Africa, 
on the Congo, the Niger, and the Nile. It 
is this vital, aggressive indwelling power of 
Christianity which is one of the proofs of 
its divine origin. Buddha numbers more 
followers. Mohammedanism is propagand- 
ist with fire and sword from the days of 
the Prophet of Arabia to his latest disciples. 
Yet Buddha and Mohammed fade before the 
light of the cross, over which may be al- 
most seen the flaming sword of the angel 
which once drove sin from Paradise." 



Jfn the name of t\)c Seueoolent falser of a\ 

I, A B , of , do make and publish this my la 

will and testament, as follows : 
Item First: I give and devise, etc. 

Item Second: I give and devise to the "Trustees of the Oh 
Wesleyan University," and its successors and assigi 
forever, the following lands and tenements [description] 

county, in the State of . 

Item Third: I give and bequeath to the "Trustees of the Oh: 

Wesleyan University " the sum of dollars, to 1 

paid by my Executor out of my estate within montl 

after my decease. 
In testimony whereof, I hereto subscribe my name and affix m 

seal, this day of , A.D. . 

A ■ B . [Seal.] 

Signed and acknowledged by the above-named A B 

testator, as his last will and testament in our presence; and signe 
by us in his presence, and at his request, as subscribing witnessc 
to the foregoing last will and testament at the date last aforesaid. 

C D . 

E F . 



Provision for the University by persons who desire an Annuit 

for life. 

Any person who desires to convey real or personal estate, < 
give money, bonds, etc., to the University, can do so on conditio 
that an annuity shall be paid by the University to the grantor ( 
donor during life. U WS It £) ii 

Arrangements can be mad"lty addTOsraf O » 

REV. W. G. WILLIAMS, D.D., 

Secretary of the Board of Trustees, 

DELAWARE, OHI' 






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